Planet Launches Record-breaking 88 Satellites - 15/02/2017

Planet successfully has launched 88 Dove satellites, creating the largest satellite constellation ever to reach orbit. With these satellites in orbit, Planet will reach its Mission 1: the ability to image all of Earth’s landmass every day.

In 2011 Planet set itself the audacious mission of imaging the entire Earth land area every day. The company was convinced that armed with such data, humanity would be able to have a significant positive impact on many of the world’s greatest challenges. Planet calculated that it would take between 100-150 satellites to achieve this, andstarted building them. After the launch, which took place on 14 February, Planet operates 144 satellites in orbit.

Behind the scenes Planet miniaturised satellites; learned how to manufacture them at scale, constructed the world’s second largest private network of ground stations, custom built an automated mission control system, created a massive data pipeline able to process the vast amount of imagery they collect, and developed a software platform that lets customers, researchers, governments and NGOs access imagery quickly. Each of these has been a significant undertaking in and of itself, altogether representing a major systems engineering project. On top of this comes the non-engineering efforts from raising capital, receiving regulatory licenses, booking launches, and building a base of hundreds of partners that use the data to solve their needs.

Planet was founded in 2010 by a team of ex-NASA scientists, the company is driven by a mission to image the entire Earth every day, and make global change visible, accessible, and actionable.